A constant difficulty as I went to college was parking. I always lived off campus, and after the first year I could not scam myself a coveted dorm parking sticker. I purchased a mountain bike and rode it to school much of the time during the warmer months, but I still drove a decent amount of the time. I could have purchased a sticker to a far away lot where I would park my car and get bussed in every day. Drive my car to a bus stop? It didn't seem right.

After a brief search I found the free parking spot that would last me the rest of my college years. It was at the corner of Princeton and Lead in the Student Ghetto, about five blocks from the university. It was far enough away that nobody else wanted to park there. I took several walking routes through the Student Ghetto to get to school, and one of my more popular ways passed by the Graffiti House on the corner of Stanford and Silver (yes, all of the streets have university and metallic names).

The Graffiti House was just what it sounds like, a house with the walls and roof covered in spray paint. The structure was run down much like most of the houses in the SG. Landlords rarely upgraded places and charged relatively cheap prices for rent for their lack of effort (although I've heard otherwise).

As the story goes, a mother and her two sons lived in the place. She said as long as they promised not to tag anywhere else, the boys could paint the house. The place soon became a haven for many graffiti artists, and the house's facade was always in constant colorful turmoil.

True to form, anything out of the ordinary must be problem. As one newspaper article explained this week "many neighbors had complained about crime and the extraordinary amount of colorful graffiti that covered the two bedroom cottage."

Extraordinary amount of colorful graffiti! What will we do? I hear that in addition to huffing the spray paint, they also lace the walls with PCP , so any passersby who lick the wall will suffer brain damage. Make sure you don't lick the walls!

To say the house was free from problems would be a lie. The Graffiti House suffered a fire which deteriorated the insides immensely. Drug exchanges probably occurred as well as a deviant plot or two. Of course, that could be said in about one out of three houses in the SG.

As you may have guessed, the Graffiti House was razed this week to make way for a four-unit apartment complex. After six years, the neighborhood activists got what they wanted. Less color.

Now the delinquents and taggers who visited the house can move on to the next block. It's not like these are hooligans that traveled from the far corners of the city. They are the kids from the neighborhood. Instead of tagging one specific house, now they can go on to other houses.

In the long run, the tearing down of the Graffiti House will make no difference. It was just a run down place in a run down part of town, but it was different. An evolving unpredictable art piece. A distraction. Now it's gone, and we can pretend that all the houses are safe again.

Chris Jungle painted sayings on the walls of his bedroom as a freshman in college. He was kicked out within a year.